Biden-Appointed Judge Orders Trump Administration to Admit 12,000 Refugees into the United States

A Biden-appointed federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to admit around 12,000 refugees into the United States, stymying President Trump’s efforts to re-shape America’s immigration policies.

President Trump signed an executive order on January 20 halting the the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), stating that “the policy of the United States [is] to ensure that public safety and national security are paramount considerations in the administration of the USRAP.”

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington initially blocked Trump’s executive order in February on the basis that it allegedly violated the 1980 Refugee Act.

But his decision was overruled by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 24. The three-judge appellate panel ruled that the Trump administration could suspend the refugee admissions system as long as the government did not revoke the refugee status of people already conditionally approved before Jan. 20. The Appeal’s Court ruled that the administration was likely to win the case in the Supreme Court “given the president’s broad authority to determine who is allowed to enter the country,” according to the Washington Times.

On April 21, the appeal’s court issued a clarification on its previous order, explaining that it “only pertained to individuals who, prior to Jan. 20, had been conditionally approved to be admitted as refugees, who had been cleared by Citizen and Immigration Services to travel to the U.S., and who had confirmable travel arrangements to come to the country.”

At a hearing last week, the Trump administration reportedly argued that it should only have to admit 160 refugees who were scheduled to travel within two weeks of his executive order.

But Whitehead shot down that argument on Monday, saying “the government’s interpretation is, to put it mildly, interpretive jiggerypokery of the highest order.”

The judge argued that the Trump administration’s take required not just reading between the lines” of the the 9th Circuit’s ruling, “but hallucinating new text that simply is not there.”

“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead continued. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law – and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit – while it seeks such clarification.”

USRAP was created by Congress in 1980 to allow legal migration to the U.S. “for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution.” The process often takes years and involves intense vetting.

The immigration law requires that Executive Branch officials “review the refugee situation or emergency refugee situation,”  “project the extent of possible participation of the United States in resettling refugees,” and “discuss the reasons for believing that the proposed admission of refugees is justified by humanitarian concerns, grave humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Trump’s January executive order suspending the entire program triggered a lawsuit brought by individual refugees and major refugee aid organizations.  According to the Times, the refugee aid groups complained that the administration froze their funding and they had to lay off staff. The groups were reportedly tasked with “processing refugee applications overseas and providing support, such as short-term rental assistance for those already in the U.S.”

The appeals court said the government must continue processing refugees who already had “arranged and confirmable” travel plans before Jan. 20 to come to the U.S. The Justice Department put the number of refugees in that category at about 12,000.

During a hearing last week over how to interpret and enforce the appeals court ruling, Justice Department lawyer David Kim said the government took it to mean that the only refugees who should be processed for entry to the U.S. are those who were scheduled to travel to the U.S. within two weeks of Trump’s order. There were far fewer refugees who met that definition – just 160, the department said.

The judge and lawyers for refugee resettlement organizations disagreed with the government’s reading. They noted that nothing in the 9th Circuit’s order suggested a two-week window. Instead, Whitehead said, the order should apply to any refugees who had been approved to come to the U.S. and had established travel plans – regardless of when that travel was scheduled for.

Whitehead ordered the administration to instruct agency offices to resume processing the cases of the approximately 12,000 refugees within the next seven days and to “immediately take steps to facilitate admission to the U.S. for those refugees whose clearances, including medical and security authorizations, have not yet lapsed.”

White House Chief-of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller on Tuesday called Whitehead’s order a “judicial coup.”